Postmaster General Tony Benn’s unsuccessful attempt to remove the Queen’s head on stamps (1965)

This letter links to Tony Benn’sexperiments with removing the Queen’s head from commemorative stamps, in order to give designers more space for their work. The letter accompanied designs for the International Telecommunications Union stamp, some of which did not depict the Queen’s head. Following a meeting with the Queen two days later, Benn received a letter from Sir Michael Adeane, the Queen’s Private Secretary, stating ‘The Queen was not as enthusiastic about these designs as she sometimes is’.